For those times when a mere flash-bang grenade isn't startling enough, when stink warfare isn't quite as rancid as you need it to be, the kind folks at Scientific Applications and Research Associates, Inc. have a weapon in mind: a Multi-Sensory Distraction Device, which unleashes a "simultaneous assault on 3 senses (sight, hearing & smell/taste) [that] will disorient unprepared adversaries and disadvantage even prepared adversaries."
Over the years, various branches of the military have spent about a million dollars funding the development of the soda bottle-esque MSDD. The idea is to combine "malodorants" -- nasty doses of "rotting meat," "feces," "skunk," or "B.O." scents -- with "intense acoustic" generators, just on the threshold of causing "likely physical damage." And then add in high-powered flares, designed to be brightest in the slice of the spectrum where the human eye takes in the most light.
"When confronted with a multi-sensory device, targets have a limited number of responses, all of which interfere with the ability to continue the current action," one MSDD presentation notes. "The target can choose to cover ears, or eyes or noses or try to avoid being hit by incoming projectiles, but can't protect more than one sense at a time."
The "combined effects" of the MSDD trio will be "more than the sum of the parts," its inventors promise. And just in case that all wasn't nasty enough, the tinkerers have added "stingballs" -- lots of itty-bitty rubber projectiles -- to the weapon.
As far as I can tell, the MSDD is still just a lab project. But, man, are some people gonna hurt, if it ever gets deployed.
(High five: Entropic Memes)
